O2 broadband and distance from the exchange

I tried to switch to O2 broadband today knowing that they have LLU equipment in my exchange (Kingsmead, Bath). However I was told I could only get the expensive £22/month connection as if O2 did not have equipment in Bath.
The only explanation I can think of is that my max line rate is 3 Mbit/sec because I am far from the exhange.
This seems a bit odd that I cannot connect to O2 hardware at lower speeds. I have not had that problem with Sky in the past or Pipex currently, they just cap my max speed for better reliability.
Anyone know if this is because of an O2 policy or technical reason?
Looks like I will have to go back to Sky instead as current provider performs too poorly.

Did you try through the web site first, or just phone?

It could be that all the O2 LLU connections there are taken up. Have you tried the Be web site, as they seem to hard-split the connections between them, not just both keep going till it is full.

MKD's comparison of the two. (O2 bought Be to get into broadband).

Though Be are usually tighter than O2 about line length.

Can you post your line stats? See here for help if you don't know how to get them.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 31-May-09 22:39:06)

Tried o2 on both phone enquiry and internet. Both only offered £22/mo deal.

Just tried Be too they clearly say I am too far from the exchange to offer a service, interesting if they use the same hardware.

Here are my modem stats:

System Up Time 144:35:50
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 6113170 10325621 0 1220 836 115:29:06
LAN 10M/100M 6555782 4475219 0 5237 1275 144:35:48
WLAN 11M/54M 5989375 3530703 0 9651 734 107:12:08

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 2176 kbps 288 kbps
Line Attenuation 62.0 db 31.5 db
Noise Margin 11.0 db 21.0 db

The O2 product you have been offered is the BT Wholesale based ADSL Max. Be do not have an equivalent. It's just the LLU products that run on the same equipment.

Looks like it is back to Sky as you say, but watch out if you don't want your phone taking away from BT. See this News Article.

Looking at those stats you do look to be too far away for O2 to accept you, but it also looks as though Pipex/Tiscali are setting your target noise margin high, like they seem to do by default.

I would have thought with most ISPs you could get about 3500kbps connection (possibly 3Mbps profile) on that line. Have you checked what connection speed you get, (not speed test speed), using the test socket on the wall at the back in this pic?

Is there any reason you haven't considered the likes of IDNet, Zen or Newnet? (Newnet for under 20GB per month, the other two for more).

That line is too long for Be, i.e. they tend to only take short to medium lines. Not aware of O2 doing the same a lot, but you do see the odd one.